Improvement in harvester-rakes



UNITED Srnrns PATENT OF SAMUEL C. RID-GAWAY, OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

lM PROVEMENT IN HARVESTER-RAKES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 71,327, dated November26, 1867.

i To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, SAMUEL (l. RIDGAWAY, of Baltimore, in the county ofBaltimore and State of Maryland, have invented certain new and usefulImprovements in Rakes for Harvesters; and I do hereby declare that thefollowing is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, referencebeing had to the accompanying drawings, making part of thisspecification and to the letters of reference marked thereon, likeletters indicating like parts wherever they occur.

To enable others skilled in the art to construct and use my invention, Iwill proceed to describe it.

My invention consists in operating the rake ments upon the devicepatented to Thomas Taylor,April 10, 1866. In that the rake was operatedby a crank moving in a circle, and

it was found, in practice, that the rake, at

the beginning of its movement across the front of the platform, had atendency to push the out grain forward into or upon the standing grain,in consequence of the circular motion of the rake at that point, causingit to move. forward as well as sidewise.

To remedy this diificulty, and impart to the rake such a movement aswill cause it to move sidewise from the inner front corner of theplatform, is the object of my present invention.

I construct the platform A and the rake B as described in the patentreferred to, and shown in the drawings filed herewith. Instead, however,of operating the rake by means of a rigid crank-arm, as in the formercase, I use an arm, I, composed of the two bars 0 and n, these barsbeing so connected to each other as to permit of their slidinglongitudinally independently of one another.

The bar it is attached rigidly to the top of the vertical shaft 6, whichworks in thesleeve a, while the sliding bar 0 is secured to n by theclasps c and c, the clasp 0 being ,secured' to the end of bar at, andthe clasp 0 being secured in like manner to the bar 0, thus holding thebars n and 0 together and in line,.but permitting the bar 0 to slide toand fro on the bar at, and thus to make the crank-arm I longer orshorter, according as the bar 0 is In order to so guide the bar 0, andthereby impart to the rake B, which "is moved by it, the desiredmovement, I attach rigidly to the top of the sleeve on a cam-plate, G,the form of which is shown in Fig. 1. On the upper face of this plate Iform a groove, u, ini which a stud projecting from the under side of thebar 0, and having a friction -roller, 6, on it,

moves. I

As the crank-arm l revolves, it will be seen that the movements of thebar 0 longitudinally will be governed by the form of the cam track orgroove u, and that by varying the shape of this track the crank-pin G,and consequently the rake B, may be moved as desired.

In order that the rake shall be thrown to the extreme limit of itsforward movement at the instant that it reaches the inner front cornerof the platform, I make the cam G with a projecting point, I, asrepresented in Fig. 1, and so locate the cam that the stud, which runsin the groove a, shall arrive at the point I at the instant the rakefalls uponor reaches the inner front corner of the platform. I

From the point Zthe groove in is continued in such a direction as tocause the rake B to move laterally along the line of the ridge or bar h,in the direction indicated by the arrow It will thus be seen that bymeans of the compound arm I and the cam G,I entirely obviate thedifficulty arising from. the use of y the rake as originallyconstructed, and impart to it just such a movement as is required to Thecompound crank-arm I and cam G, in make it perform its Work perfectly.combination with the rake B, when mounted In all other respects the rakeand its oper above the platform, and arranged to operate ating mechanismare constructed as described substantially as and for the purpose setforth.

in the patent hereinbefore mentioned and need not therefore be morefully described SAML' RIDGAWAY' 1 herein. I \iVitnesses Having thusfully described my invention, W. O. DODGE,

what I claim is' P. T. DODGE.

